Letter to the editor: Superintendent offends Lafayette with his remarks

I found certain of Superintendent Pat Cooper's remarks at a recent BESE committee meeting considering charter schools to be highly offensive to many people in Lafayette. He said that the people at the meeting speaking against charters were the very ones who had created the high dropout rate and the large number of children who were behind in their work for the "last 10, 12, 15 years." I personally know many of those people, and they are people of integrity who have worked hard in the past for the betterment of education in Lafayette Parish and have legitimate concerns about establishing charter schools in Lafayette. Some of them have never been employees of the Lafayette School System.

Dr. Cooper addressed the issue of the cost or loss of public money that the district will lose to the charters. "We don't know what it's going to cost us because when kids leave, teachers leave, and thank God, when those teachers leave - some of them - we are not going to have to pay that 25 percent legacy costs to retirement. ."

Instead of trying to retain teachers and lower the pupil-to-teacher ratio, which is one of the major problems of low performance, the Superintendent seems happy to lose teachers. I find this unacceptable.

The most offensive of the superintendent's remarks to the BESE committee were the following. After addressing a Memorandum of Understanding he found to be legal, he said, "And that is one of the epidemic things we have in Lafayette Parish where people don't like stuff, they just lie. And I will probably get run out of town for saying that, but absolutely, that is what happens." alling people who oppose him "liars" in a public forum is totally unprofessional and unacceptable, and I do believe an apology is due.

Richard Cusimano

Lafayette

Long before the late Jim Olivier started his successful home improvement business, he was a nationally recognized researcher and authority on the Kennedy assassination.

On one of his frequent discussion visits on my radio show, he brought a clear copy of his Alfred Zapruder film to indicate that, as the Kennedy limousine passed Zapruder, his camera caught a small portion of the grassy knoll fence, to his right, that clearly shows the head of "one person and this person is withdrawing a rifle with what appears to be a silencer on the barrel. Jim, who interviewed a key witnesses, Jean Hill, who is seen in the film taking pictures from across the street, also saw a man's face behind the fence and saw the rifle barrel as well. This important piece of evidence was completely ignored by the hurried up and badly flawed Warren Commission Report, that is considered worthless today. Perhaps it will take another dedicated researcher like Jim Olivier to provide and find answers as to exactly what happened on "the fateful November day 50 years ago.

L.C. Melchior

Lafayette

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Letter to the editor: Superintendent offends Lafayette with his remarks

I found certain of Superintendent Pat Cooper's remarks at a recent BESE committee meeting considering charter schools to be highly offensive to many people in Lafayette.

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